Building the Bochur, Not a Mold: Inside Eitz Chaim’s New Mesivta

For more than a century, Yeshivas Eitz Chaim has been part of the fabric of Jewish education in Toronto. This week, the institution entered a new chapter with the opening of the Yeshivas Eitz Chaim Mesivta, extending its educational vision into the high-school years.

The Toronto Scoop spoke with three members of the hanhala — Rabbi Mordechai Loiterman,Head of School; Rabbi Avi Friedman, Executive Director; and Rav Akiva Graeber, RoshYeshiva — about why the Mesivta was created, the philosophy behind it, and what they hope to build.

At the heart of the conversation was one recurring idea: chinuch begins with the individual. Rather than beginning with a predetermined picture of what every graduating bochur ought to look like, Eitz Chaim’s approach seeks to understand the particular student standing in front of the mechanech — his strengths, his personality, his aspirations and his unique path in avodas Hashem. The new Mesivta, its leaders say, grew out of a desire to continue that approach through
the crucial high-school years.

The Toronto Scoop: Rabbi Loiterman, what was the impetus for opening a Mesivta? Was it something that came from parents, from the staff, or was it an idea that had been developing internally?

Rabbi Mordechai Loiterman: Eitz Chaim has a very particular style of chinuch. We are focused on promoting the individual’s service to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. We recognize that every student has his own tafkid and his own way that he is going to serve Hashem. That needs to be celebrated, developed and brought out within each talmid.
As our bochurim were growing and reaching the transition from Grade 8 into Grade 9, we wanted to make sure that each one would be able to continue finding his own derech and discovering the sweetness and joy in learning.
We knew, of course, that some of our graduates would continue on to different yeshivos that are appropriate fits for them. But we also saw an opportunity to create a Mesivta that would carry forward our particular approach, helping a bochur discover where he can go and how much he can become.
I sometimes compare it to driving a powerful sports car in first gear without realizing that another gear exists. We see tremendous middos and tremendous potential in these boys, along with a desire to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu with happiness. We wanted to create an environment that could help them discover that next gear.

So, we began exploring whether we could build a yeshiva in which the outcome is not predetermined — other than helping every bochur reach the highest level of success that he personally can reach.
That became the vision.

The Toronto Scoop: Starting a high school is a major undertaking. Did being part of an established institution make the process easier?

Rabbi Loiterman: It has been remarkably streamlined.
One of Eitz Chaim’s great strengths is that the organizational structure already exists to support the people doing the chinuch. Rabbi Friedman, our Executive Director, handles the operations, budgeting and so much of the behind-the-scenes work necessary to make a yeshiva successful.
We have experienced menahalim, established systems, buildings and infrastructure.
We are also just completing the upgrade to our Spring Farm building, which has given us the physical space for the Mesivta. And it is connected to the Thornhill Community Kollel, so rather than opening into an empty beis medrash, the boys enter a building with a bustling beis medrash and people learning throughout the day.
That is an extraordinary resource.
Ordinarily, creating a school would be an enormous logistical challenge. But we weren’t beginning from zero. The classrooms, admissions systems, financial infrastructure and administrative support were already there.
That allowed the focus to remain where it belongs: on building the yeshiva and being marbitz Torah.

The Toronto Scoop: Rabbi Friedman, what has it been like from the operational side?

Rabbi Avi Friedman: There has been tremendous siyata diShmaya. When the new building was being developed, nobody could have predicted that we would soon be opening a Mesivta and that we would have an entire area essentially sitting there ready for it.
The Mesivta is very much part of the fabric of Eitz Chaim. Rabbi Graeber and Rabbi Krames have been working very hard on all of the details, and there has been tremendous energy surrounding the opening.
Seeing Mesivta-age bochurim walking around the building is something new for everyone.
When we began this morning, many members of the community and people from the elementary school joined the Shacharis minyan. There was a tremendous feeling of excitement.
It feels like something monumental for Eitz Chaim.

The Toronto Scoop: Rav Graeber, what struck you as you got to know Eitz Chaim and its approach?

Rav Akiva Graeber: My relationship with Rabbi Loiterman actually began a couple of years ago. When I first met him, I walked away very impressed by someone whose vision was broad while at the same time being focused on details.
We connected very strongly around a shared idea: chinuch is individual.
Growth cannot be measured by one uniform standard. You have to look at the individual person: Is he moving upward? Is he growing according to his level? What are his talents? Where is he going?
The goal isn’t to stick everyone into the same mold.
When Rabbi Loiterman contacted me about this idea and I came to see Eitz Chaim firsthand, I was tremendously impressed. I walked through classrooms and listened to the rebbeim. I saw the level of preparation and clarity with which they were teaching, and then I saw the participation and interest of the boys.
This was serious Talmud Torah.
But as I began looking beneath the surface, I discovered that there was an entire philosophy behind the way chinuch is being done here.
There is a value system. Boys are taught to take responsibility for themselves; to recognize when something went wrong, to think about why it happened, and then to consider what they can do differently in the future.
Rabbi Loiterman once described that to me very simply: “This is the Rambam in Hilchos
Teshuvah.” The teshuvah process requires a person to recognize what happened and then make a kabbalah al ha’asid — to think seriously about how he will deal with that challenge differently in the future.
It may sound fresh, but the ideas are deeply rooted in our mesorah.

The Toronto Scoop: Did you see the results of that philosophy when you began meeting the boys themselves?

Rav Graeber: Absolutely. When I farhered the Eitz Chaim boys, I asked each of them what he wanted to accomplish during his Mesivta years.
The answers were remarkable.
One wanted to learn how to learn. Another wanted to enjoy learning. Another wanted to become closer to Hashem. It wasn’t scripted. Each boy had thought about the question himself.

These were boys who had been taught to think about their own growth and to take responsibility for it.
That is exactly what we want to continue.

The Toronto Scoop: What kind of Mesivta are you trying to create in terms of the level of learning and expectations?
Rav Graeber: We are looking for boys who genuinely want to shtieg.
The goal is to develop boys as future talmidei chachamim and true bnei Torah, regardless of what their eventual source of parnassah may be.
That means there are serious expectations. There is a strong seder hayom, including night seder, and we have a firm policy that the boys do not have smartphones, including kosher smartphones.
A family coming into the yeshiva has to want that.
At the same time, the individualized philosophy is essential. Seriousness and individuality aren’t contradictions. The goal is to give a bochur the environment and expectations that allow him to discover what he is capable of becoming.
We have begun with 13 boys, and they are a wonderful group — eidel, motivated and ready to learn.

The Toronto Scoop: Tell us about the rebbeim you’ve assembled.

Rav Graeber: We have been tremendously fortunate.
One of the things that surprised me was how many mechanchim reached out because they were excited by what we were trying to build. Some were younger people interested in getting involved in chinuch, while others were experienced marbitzei Torah. There was a real desire to become part of this.
Our ninth-grade Maggid Shiur for iyun is Rabbi Dovid Indich, a phenomenal talmid chacham who brings tremendous life, love and chiyus to his teaching.
Rabbi Shmuel Heller, an experienced mechanech who previously served as a mashgiach and Maggid Shiur, is joining us for second seder. He brings tremendous experience and a deep understanding of bochurim.
We also have Rabbi Ari Rabinowitz as a sho’el u’meishiv. He is an exceptional baal masbir with an ability to explain things clearly, deeply and understandably.
And of course we have Rabbi Yehoshua Krames, the Mesivta’s menahel, who has a keen understanding of the bochurim and their individual needs. He is a master at orchestrating all the moving parts of the Mesivta, ensuring that the many different elements come together to create the environment we want for each bochur.

They are all talmidei chachamim who possess a pleasantness and an ability to serve as genuine role models. Their yiras Shamayim, middos tovos and sense of responsibility are things we want the boys to see and absorb.
We couldn’t ask for better role models for our bochurim.

The Toronto Scoop: Is the Mesivta essentially the automatic next step for boys graduating from Eitz Chaim’s elementary school?

Rav Graeber: No, and that’s an important point.
The philosophy itself demands that we look at each boy individually. There will be Eitz Chaim graduates for whom this Mesivta is exactly the right place, and there will be others for whom another yeshiva is the right place.
Likewise, the Mesivta is not limited to graduates of Eitz Chaim. Boys are coming from other schools as well.
There is a separate admissions process because the question has to be: What is the right environment for this particular bochur?
That itself is part of the philosophy we are trying to preserve.

The Toronto Scoop: So perhaps the best way to understand the new Mesivta is not simply that Eitz Chaim decided to add a high school, but that you wanted to extend a particular philosophy of chinuch for high school bochurim from a variety of places?

Rabbi Loiterman: Exactly.
Eitz Chaim has been around for 113 years. With an institution that old, you could begin to think that preserving the institution itself is the most important thing.
But that isn’t how we see it.
Eitz Chaim has always been a community school. The institution exists to serve the needs of the community and its talmidim.
The Mesivta is another expression of that.
We want to put the bochur first — to understand who he is, help him discover his own abilities, give him a love and sweetness for learning, and enable him to reach the greatest level that he can reach.
That is what we are setting out to build.
We recently met with Mr. Hillel Rap of Or Chaim who is in the process of creating a general studies curriculum that will maximize the potential of the individual bochur. We have hired a team of Ontario certified general studies teachers who teach in public schools earlier in the day and will be coming to our Mesivta in the afternoon. We feel strongly that the general studies program should not be viewed as simply a way to get through the afternoon but an important part of the day when the bochurim will be spending their time wisely.
We have prepared a safrus course and we are hoping that it will be accredited towards the arts curriculum. We will be having the bochurim study medical ethics in the afternoon for those who want to pursue careers in medicine.

As Yeshivas Eitz Chaim embarks on this new chapter in its long history, The Toronto Scoop wishes Rav Graeber, Rabbi Loiterman, Rabbi Friedman, the rebbeim and, most importantly, the bochurim much hatzlacha. May the new Mesivta succeed in its mission of helping each bochur discover his individual strengths and grow in Torah, yiras Shamayim and avodas Hashem.